


Scene: Two Lovers, Central Park

by zechariahfour (sodas)



Category: Banana Fish (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, Gen, M/M, POV Outsider, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 03:44:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18327965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sodas/pseuds/zechariahfour
Summary: "You were stupid," Eiji laughs."Yeah, yeah," says Aslan. "I got it already." His voice is New York thick: gritty and vibrant, the great tangling jungle ever advertised. But he's not protesting, as if he knows he can't. I watch them and wonder how many times they've cycled through this ping pong game of smiling and grumbling. Aslan is sharp as a tack, but I get the feeling Eiji is usually the winner.This is how they choose to answer me after I ask them how they met. I've been working for weeks on a piece about couples in Central Park.





	Scene: Two Lovers, Central Park

**Author's Note:**

> post-series, AU where... well, y'know.

"You were stupid," Eiji laughs. 

"Yeah, yeah," says Aslan. "I got it already." His voice is New York thick: gritty and vibrant, the great tangling jungle ever advertised. But he's not protesting, as if he knows he can't. I watch them and wonder how many times they've cycled through this ping pong game of smiling and grumbling. Aslan is sharp as a tack, but I get the feeling Eiji is usually the winner.

This is how they choose to answer me after I ask them how they met. I've been working for weeks on a piece about couples in Central Park. Young and old, gay and straight, whatever spreads on the human spectrum I could find. I first spot Aslan and Eiji huddled together at a park bench and figure I'll see what they might offer. 

Aslan is a white man whose glasses do nothing to tone down the intensity of his green eyes, which he narrows at me when I approach. Eiji is Japanese, and his own glasses leave him looking fairly nondescript. At me, he only smiles, but he squeezes Aslan's hand, which he's already been holding. Their demeanors combined leave me with the sense that I've just tracked mud through someone's home. But it makes me believe there's a story here. 

I introduce myself and then explain myself. Eiji nods in understanding, maybe a little more than necessary. He introduces the both of them in turn: Aslan and Eiji Okumura. It confirms what I had gathered just from watching them: they're married. 

First I ask them how long they've been together. I expect Eiji to be the one who answers, as he's been the closest to welcoming, but Aslan speaks up. "Sixty-two years," he says easily. 

"Is that right?" says Eiji, and seems to be working backward through his mind. "Wow, it is."

"Forgetful old coot," Aslan tells him. 

"You are going to stay such a brat forever," Eiji says back.

They tease each other like teenagers. That youthfulness drew me to approach them: two old men, sitting side by side, their heads tilted together tenderly. It looked like a young love. Now I see it's a timeless one. 

"That's a long time," I note, trying to catch them before their playful jabs swallow the conversation.

Eiji smiles at me. "You think so?"

"Well, we're not done yet," Aslan says, defiant and a little smug. 

That's when I ask how they met, and it seems like they can't stop themselves from pestering each other. But I see it for what it is: they're both huge flirts. 

I cycle through more questions, mostly surface level stuff while I build up to the ones that are really pressing at me. Aslan lets Eiji do most of the chatting, which I anticipated. It's hard for me not to remark on the way Aslan watches his husband answer questions and tell silly stories. I can only describe it as a hallelujah. But finally, Aslan tells me dryly, "Human interest, indeed. You don't get paid enough for this crap."

I laugh, startled. "Plenty of people think the opposite," I say. "Do you have some background in journalism?" It's my way of trying to get my foot in the door. Neither man has talked about their backgrounds--just the quaint stuff you get from seniors. 

Aslan smiles at me with his lips pressed together. Then he says, "My dad. Wrote for years. Big stuff. Human stuff, too."

"Yeah? Hey, I wonder if I went through any of his work when I was a student." I'm latching on to what I can. Eiji is easy enough to make conversation with; Aslan is a lot tougher. 

"You did," says Aslan. It's not a boast, nothing bombastic in confidence--just the sure knowledge of it. In that same way, Aslan is readily aware of how interesting he is, and he's unrepentant in declining to quench that interest.

I try moving elsewhere. I ask if they live in New York. 

"We did," says Eiji. "Way back when. For now we are visiting."

" _You_ didn't live here," says Aslan, some sort of curt reminder. I'm transfixed by his protective bearing, like he'll leap up to rail against a threat, even with his wheelchair braked next to Eiji's park bench. "You were visiting then, too."

"I was visiting," agrees Eiji. Then: "I came alive here."

Aslan quiets. He gives in to Eiji completely. "Yeah, well, I did too."

I have been sitting on the grass in front of them, riveted. I decide to try again, softly. "How did the two of you meet?"

Both old men fall silent. Eiji looks as gentle as a dove, and apologetic. He wants to tell me, but perhaps he doesn't think he should. 

Finally, Aslan says, "Eiji saved my life."

"Aslan!" Eiji interjects. I'm not sure whether he's surprised or chiding. 

"This city is the pits, you know that? Kind of a cesspool. Well, it was even worse when I was a kid."

"A kid?" I ask. 

"Seventeen, eighteen, even younger. Pretty much always," Aslan says. "So Eiji and I, we played it back and forth for a while, saving each other's lives. Covering each other's asses."

"Especially my ass," says Eiji. I'm startled to find that his eyes are welling up. 

"Yeah, right." Aslan points at me. "I'm rolling around in this crappy contraption as a grumpy old man because this Japanese blockhead saved everything there was of me to save. Put that in your article."

"I'll jot it down," I tell him, a little stunned. Then he looks critically at me until I actually do it.

"Aslan is a romantic," says Eiji, wiping his eyes. His glasses are in his lap; his hand is in Aslan's. Aslan squeezes it. 

There's something fierce in each of them, like they're younger men again. If Aslan looks ready for battle, Eiji looks ready to throw his body in front of someone's bullet. I've never seen such ferocity from two lovers in a park. I believe it, that they've saved each other's lives--metaphorically and otherwise. 

I ask them if they come to visit New York often; seems like there's a lot of history here for them. 

Eiji shakes his head. "There is. We haven't come in years."

"We only come for funerals," Aslan adds, sounding crisp for an old timer. He must see something delicate in my expression, the question I'm not sure I should ask. When he frowns, I have this weird urge to never disappoint him. "You're a journalist, aren't you? Ask me." So I ask whose funeral they've come to attend. Aslan gives me the name of a certain influential attorney whose passing made statewide news. 

"A really dear friend," says Eiji. He's dabbing at his eyes again. I sit back in the grass, trying to get my bearings. I'm thinking they're some outrageous high society types until Aslan speaks again. 

"We knew him before he turned over his 'good boy' leaf, you know."

"Oh, be quiet," says Eiji. "[He] was always a good man. Just rough around the edges, like you."

I risk a joke. "Did you have to turn over your own leaf, Aslan?"

Aslan snorts at me, but in the same moment, Eiji says, "Yep. Definitely. Aslan was the... ah..." He turns his head to Aslan and says a word in Japanese. 

Aslan rolls his eyes. "Scourge," he supplies, and Eiji beams at me. 

"He was the scourge of all the scariest men in New York."

"I _was_ the scariest," Aslan says thinly. 

Eiji settles his head toward Aslan's and noses against his ear. "Be quiet," he says again, with downy affection. "You never were." Aslan shuts his eyes, and leans into Eiji's murmurs. 

This is a scene I'm loath to break, or break into, despite all the questions it raises for me. The attorney who passed was known for his previous activity in youth gangs, and spoke openly about what kids on the street needed in order to flourish. Had Aslan been involved with ragtag groups like that? But a child in a gang wouldn't have been the 'scourge of scary men'--perhaps he had ties to the mob? Illicit politics? Any of these I could see being the case, for the rest of his jaw and the glint of his eyes, like jade unearthed from an emperor's ancient tomb. And yet the grasp he shares with his husband has the vitality and trust of a lamb. 

I ask before I can stop myself, mystified by their world, and their happenstance presence in mine. "Who are you?"

Eiji laughs. "If we told you that, it would be your big break!"

Of course, they don't tell me.


End file.
